OMA Designs Translucent Cube of Window Displays for Tokyo Coach Store

April 10, 2013

We can always count on OMA to keep us on our toes. While Rem Koolhaas is peddling his black humor theories about a global society vitiated by rampant consumption, his firm is off producing an impressive portfolio of high-end commercial spaces. The latest is a Coach flagship store in Tokyo, for which New York office director Shohei Shigematsu has dissolved the building facade into a series of translucent display boxes stacked in a herringbone pattern. The design at once surrounds shoppers with an immersive environment of Coach products while “simultaneously liberating floor space,” according to a press release. “Viewed from the interior,” Shigematsu explained, “the display units seamlessly provide an active backdrop for merchandise, filtering Omotesando’s streetscape into the shopping experience.” While we’re always game for some interior-exterior boundary-blurring, we definitely don’t want to be the person in charge of dusting and Windex-ing this store.